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In Alaska, Melting Glaciers Cause Land to Rise

Glaciers receding 30 feet each year

By Sarah Quinn,  Newser Staff

Posted May 18, 2009 9:01 AM CDT

(Newser) – Around Juneau, Alaska, climate change is causing an unexpected problem, the New York Times reports: As glaciers melt, the land is rising away from the sea. The change—10 feet in about 200 years—is enough to dry up local streams and wetland habitats, and is the result of land springing back after the weight of glaciers is removed.

“What is the impact when (salmon) return and the streams are dry?” asked Juneau’s mayor. Another problem: Water from the melting glaciers carries sediment to the coast, where some waterways are “basically silted in,” a geologist said. The Earth’s plates continue to move, he adds, and “when you combine tectonics and glacial readjustment, you get rates that are incomprehensible.”
Mendenhall Glacier and others are receding 30 feet or more each year.
Mendenhall Glacier and others are receding 30 feet or more each year.   (©pdx3525)
Ice peaks protrude from the Herbert Glacier in Juneau, Alaska in this 2007 photo.
Ice peaks protrude from the Herbert Glacier in Juneau, Alaska in this 2007 photo.   (AP Photo)
Forest Service Interpreter Larry Rickards watches a black bear walk past the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center in Juneau, Alaska, in this 2007 photo.
Forest Service Interpreter Larry Rickards watches a black bear walk past the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center in Juneau, Alaska, in this 2007 photo.   (AP Photo)
Mendenhall Glacier and others are receding 30 feet or more each year.
Mendenhall Glacier and others are receding 30 feet or more each year.   (©a.dombrowski)
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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 5 comments
lindamae
May 19, 2009 7:47 AM CDT
"The change—10 feet in about 200 years" we should be so lucky to be alive in 2209 to see what fools we were to listen to Gore, Hansen Waxman and Markey play their cap and trade cards. To trust a computer model to make such dire policy changes is just ignorant and dangerous. Right now there are 32,000 respected scientists of many related disciplines that consider the Hansen work bunk. Remember - Gore did NOT win the Nobel prize in Science because he was using junk science. The panel of 5 judges which awarded him his prize iin Peace are Greenies and Socialists - I don't have to say anything more. Oh, okay, there are many scientists who have sued to have their names taken off the IPCC UN Report because it links them to Global Warming - which they consider bunk. This news article is so dumb. It relates to something that might happen in 200 years. Of course, we do need to clean up our planet because it is the right thing to do. CO2 does not harm it. You and I breathe it out every time we exhale. !
Caps
May 18, 2009 5:28 AM CDT
And Gore would have been alot richer, and also America if the election had not been stolen from him.
ClingingToHope
May 18, 2009 3:47 AM CDT
Where were all you people on the original Earth Day back in the early 1970's? The DIRE PREDICTION then was that there would be GLOBAL COOLING. What I love about LIBS is their penchant for flailing in the prevailing wind. Thank God (capital G) that Al Gore (inventor of the internet) has been made a millionaire based on all the global warming crap while he flies around in private jets.

Visit Mendenhall glacier
USDA Forest Service

 
climate change • Alaska • salmon • Juneau • glacier • wetlands • habitat • Mendenhall glacier

 
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